mscdex.exe error: Not enough drive letters available
Jim Pak
it thinks I don't have enough drive letters available, whatever that means.
Last weekend, I added a second hard drive plus OS/2 to my machine. In doing
so, I re-partioned, adding several logical drives.
My old set-up looked like this:
one physical hard drive, drive letters set up like this:
A: floppy, C: FAT partition (the entire hard drive), D: CD-ROM
My new set-up now looks like this:
two physical hard drives, drive letters set up like this:
A: floppy, C: FAT partition (1st drive), D: HPFS (2nd drive), E: FAT (1st),
F: FAT (1st), G: HPFS (2nd), H: FAT (2nd)
However, since DOS can't see the HPFS partitions, DOS sees the drives as this:
A: floppy, C: FAT D: FAT (i.e. the real E:), E: FAT (the real F:),
F: FAT (the real H:)
So far, no problems.
However, when I restored DOS 6.20/WFW 3.11 to my C: drive and then executed
my old autoexec.bat, I get the following messages:
----
[...]
Device Driver Name = MSCD0001
[...]
1 CD-ROM drive(s) connected.
CD-ROM device driver installed
Not enough drive letters available
----
Basically, my CD-ROM won't mount.
The line in my autoexec.bat that chokes is:
LH C:\DOS\mscdex.exe /D:MSCD0001 /M:30 /E
Afterwards, I went back to the DOS directory and tried running mscdex manually,
adding the /L option as follows:
mscdex.exe /D:MSCD0001 /M:30 /E /L:G (because I want the CD-ROM to be G:)
However, DOS still gives me the same error message.
I tried other drive letters (e.g. /L:H, /L:I, etc), but still the same error.
How can I get DOS to allow the CD-ROM to mount on drive G? Surely, there *are*
enough drive letters available. There's the whole alphabet from G to Z. :-)
I looked at "help mscdex," but it didn't mention anything about this. I've
also looked through rtfm.mit.edu for a FAQ for this group, but I didn't find
one. So now I'm posting.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Jim
Jim Pak
to my problem *was* in the MS-DOS on-line help. I'm just really bad with
the editor and thus didn't see it the first time.
Jim
J S Pluim
: I'm having a problem getting DOS 6.20 to mount my CD-ROM drive. Apparently,
: it thinks I don't have enough drive letters available, whatever that means.
Does your config.sys contain a line LASTDRIVE= ?
Baz.
Andreas Froese
>I'm having a problem getting DOS 6.20 to mount my CD-ROM drive. Apparently,
>it thinks I don't have enough drive letters available, whatever that means.
Look into your config.sys if there is a line
"LASTDRIVE=..."
If it is not, insert it.
>My new set-up now looks like this:
> two physical hard drives, drive letters set up like this:
> A: floppy, C: FAT partition (1st drive), D: HPFS (2nd drive), E: FAT (1st),
> F: FAT (1st), G: HPFS (2nd), H: FAT (2nd)
You should set this line to at least
"LASTDRIVE=I"
That would give mscdex the chance to assign drive I: to your CD-ROM.
If you want to be sure ALL drive letters are available, you could set the
value to Z. But that takes some amount of memory.
hope that helps
Andreas
--
Andreas Froese, Software Engineer
Hagenuk GmbH, Kiel - D - Germany
phone: +49 431 8818-6394, email: fro...@hagenuk.de
#include <stddiscl.h> I only speak for myself
Werner Graff
lastdrive = I
dos has to reserve memory for the drives, so it has to be told to do so
at bootuptime
Patrick M. O'Gara
jp...@pakman.sps.mot.com (Jim Pak) wrote:
>I'm having a problem getting DOS 6.20 to mount my CD-ROM drive.
that means.
>Last weekend, I added a second hard drive plus OS/2 to my machine. In
>My old set-up looked like this:
> one physical hard drive, drive letters set up like this:
> A: floppy, C: FAT partition (the entire hard drive), D: CD-ROM
> two physical hard drives, drive letters set up like this:
> A: floppy, C: FAT partition (1st drive), D: HPFS (2nd drive), E: FAT
(1st), F: FAT (1st), G: HPFS (2nd), H: FAT (2nd)
> A: floppy, C: FAT D: FAT (i.e. the real E:), E: FAT (the real F:),
> F: FAT (the real H:)
>So far, no problems.
>However, when I restored DOS 6.20/WFW 3.11 to my C: drive and then
executed my old autoexec.bat, I get the following messages:
>----
>[...]
>Device Driver Name = MSCD0001
>[...]
>1 CD-ROM drive(s) connected.
>CD-ROM device driver installed
>Not enough drive letters available
>----
>Basically, my CD-ROM won't mount.
>The line in my autoexec.bat that chokes is:
> LH C:\DOS\mscdex.exe /D:MSCD0001 /M:30 /E
>Afterwards, I went back to the DOS directory and tried running mscdex
> mscdex.exe /D:MSCD0001 /M:30 /E /L:G (because I want the CD-ROM to be
G:) However, DOS still gives me the same error message. I tried other drive
letters (e.g. /L:H, /L:I, etc), but still the same error. How can I get DOS
to allow the CD-ROM to mount on drive G? Surely, there *are* enough drive
letters available. There's the whole alphabet from G to Z.
:-)
>
>Jim
Do you have a lastdrive= statment in you config.sys file? It should be one
letter past your last drive. Also for some reason the CD-Rom is the last
drive to be loaded of all the drives so it should probably have a drive
letter that is after the last physical drive. Then the lastdrive statement
should be the next letter or you can simply set it to Z. It would be set to
Z anyway if you where using WFWg 3.11 and network VLM drivers anyway.
PAT
____________________________________________________________________________
| Patrick M. O'Gara |
| |
| 'What is obvious to the few, is a mystery to the many' |
|____________________________________________________________________________|
| Communications Consulting Lab | EG&G / Energy Measurements, Inc. |
| Broadcast Engineering Consultants | Electronic Radiation Detectors Group |
| @Wizard.com The Internet Connection | DOE Primary Contractor for the NTS |
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Andy Jibb
I got my rig working!
J. Curtis
> I know this is a 28 year-old thread
Usenet. People troubled by old threads can leave.